Self-Exploration

 So the first third of the semester has just passed and I haven't really shown anything that I have done in a month! 

I am taking a class with one of my favorite teachers, Chuck, called Creative Inquiry.  I thought at first it was an illustration class based off of stories we were writing, but upon attending the class I find that I was a bit wrong in my prediction.  We are exploring "self", "the other", and "the we" (if that makes sense at all).  This is a class that we are allowed to experiment, and create things that can ultimately be shown in a gallery, or at least develop ideas.  Big dreams, big dreams.

Anyway, one of the first assignments was to create three different pieces: one about my past, one my present, and one my future.  We based the pieces off of short biographies that we wrote after the first class.

[Past]

[Present]

[Future]

I have been really obsessed with mapping lately.  With these, I really wanted to explore a combination of materials.  Here, I have incorporated watercolor, pen, collage, and colored pencil.  All three are 9"x12".

The first is about being born in Connecticut and my family moving away to Florida.  The third is about how I want to move to San Francisco to become a fashionable cat lady with Tara (kidding, but not really).  The piece about my present is a bit confusing because Chuck added a twist to the assignment.  In this piece I was focusing on artists that I loved (originally they were just Steadman's Lono's Marlin Mask with different coloring).  Chuck assigned us to push one of our pieces further with the use of various artist books, which was just splendid because this piece was the last I had worked on and this twist was just what I wanted to complete it.  Included are bits and pieces from:

• Ralph Steadman's Lono's Marlin Mask (2000)
• Laylah Ali's Untitled (2004)
• Tucker Schwarz's Nothing can save me now (2005)
• Amy Rathbone's Rainbags (2005)
• Wendy Wischer's Sunspot Diaries (2003)

I really love the end result of the middle piece, and I am glad that I was able to continue to push it.